


fearless

by fugues



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Vector wasn't afraid, and one time he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fearless

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt on the fanworkathon; prompt is in the summary.
> 
> everything i touch turns to unmitigated awful.

He's not afraid of the voices. The ones that whisper to him, day and night, tell him who to trust and who not to trust, except that everyone falls into the 'not' sooner or later. Not afraid of the blood or the sounds of the axe when it falls, not even when it's his own family under it.  
  
(everything always quiets for one long moment after the axe and Vector lives for those long moments, the quiet and the blood and it's all so  _funny_  isn't it so that he can never help but to break the silence with his own laughter)  
  
So no. Not afraid of that, of the voices or the blood or the death.  
  
Not even when it's him. Not even when he stands alone on a smoking and burning battlefield and plunges a sword through his own chest, does Vector fear.  
  


***

  
He's not afraid when he wakes up in hell. Or what he thinks is hell, anyway, and who can blame him with the darkened sky and the crystals red like blood around him, the acid water that burns at him and makes him scream out when he dips the end of one foot into it.  
  
Hell, and him a demon of it, with wings and claws and a grin that doesn't - can't, considering the lack of mouth - reach his face but hangs in the air around him nonetheless.  
  
(not a demon but a  _Barian_  says the gray-blue one, Durbe, and Vector thinks  _what would you know_ , dreams that night of winged horses and a girl diving into the ocean and can't say why)  
  
Whatever the place is, he doesn't fear it. It or what it's made him, not even as what he  _was_  slips further and further away from him the longer he spends like this. His head has been quiet since he awoke in this place, after all, and he didn't fear the voices but they were an  _annoyance_ , he remembers when he remembers them at all, so this place can only be a blessing for taking them away.  
  
(besides, he remembers once - the last he remembers of it all for a very long time - they'd always called him a demon, and he thinks with a gleeful laugh that he finally looks the part now, no matter that they call themselves  _Barians_  rather than demons)  
  


***

  
He's not afraid when those  _children_  - and they are children, aren't they, every last one is a child to him even if Vector can't recall in the slightest how old he is - knock him from that human host and send him careening back into the darkest recesses of the Barian World with his metaphorical tail between his legs. He doesn't think for an instant that it will kill him, and so what, after all, is there for him to fear?  
  
He doesn't have time to fear, anyway. What he has time to do is plan. Heal, and plan, and think how glorious their pain will be. How much he'll enjoy destroying them one by one. Yuuma first, he thinks, the idiotic little child who struck the final blow together with that bright and shining  _monster_  at his side.  
  
(there is only enough room for one kind of monster here, and Vector doesn't intend to lie down and die for anyone)  
  
There's no fear. Only anger.  
  
Only anticipation.  
  


***

  
He's not afraid of Don Thousand's grip on him, of that Number it sends him to bow and scrape before, of that place it sends him to. Pain doesn't scare him, and neither does bowing.  
  
(he'll destroy that Number when he can, rip it piece from piece and destroy the card to make it final, but for now he'll bow and scrape as he has to)  
  
(it's for the best, as it were)  
  
Not even in that castle, on that island, does Vector fear. Something grips him, sends him shaking, but it's not  _fear_  - it's not, it's  _not_. Only the wrongness of the place, the thoughts that prickle at the back of his mind and tell him he  _knows_  the place even though he'd never set foot in the human world before he started dealing with Faker, had he?  
  
He's glad to see the back of the place. But he doesn't fear it.  
  


***

  
He's not afraid of the throne. Of the things coiled around him or the thick encasing armor.  
  
He's uncomfortable. He's angry and in pain but not  _afraid_.  
  
(he didn't want this)  
  
(he hurts)  
  
(but he does not fear)  
  
The tendrils around him are thick and cold and dig in, grazing the cold, hard skin that should stand strong against them, sapping his light until he's not certain he'd be able to stay upright without the tendrils and the armor. But through it all, he isn't afraid.  
  
(he waits, and he plans, and he trusts that he'll get free)  
  


***

  
One death didn't faze him, and so neither should another. And yet it does.  
  
He can't say why. Perhaps it's the look in that idiot child's eyes, the way he reaches out and  _gods_ , but he's stupid.  
  
"There's no saving me, Yuuma!" he screams out across the distance between them, laughs long and loud and watches the pain in Yuuma's eyes and hates it because it's no  _good_. Because Yuuma in pain is supposed to be the best thing in all the worlds and yet...  
  
(and yet Yuuma's hurting for him, for  _him_  instead of Shingetsu,  _for_  him instead of because of him and it's...)  
  
Vector's eyes sting, and it doesn't mean anything, only the pain of a blade in his chest because this one wasn't long enough to reach his heart. And Yuuma's hands are on his chest then too, Yuuma's pulled his jacket off and is pressing the fabric in around the wound and maybe he has some idea of how human bodies work because he's not pulling the knife out but, on the other hand, he also seems to think he can save Vector from a wound like this.  
  
"Idiot," he says then, and it's harder now to speak.  
  
(it hurts, it hurts, did it hurt this much when it was a flaming battlefield and a sword?)  
  
"You're not gonna die. Not gonna let you."  
  
Vector laughs again and, oh, yeah. Definitely hurts. But he laughs, and he reaches up to run a hand over Yuuma's cheek, something that would seem almost tender if he weren't thinking of Yuuma's face later when he sees the blood that Vector's smearing there. If it weren't him and it weren't Yuuma and they weren't who they are, the idiotic boy and the false friend who betrayed him.  
  
"I won't be a pawn any longer," he says. Soft, quiet, and it shouldn't be but his voice won't get any stronger, any louder. "I won't let anyone control me any longer." He laughs. It hurts more this time. "Stupid. Gave up control. But I can control this."  
  
(he doesn't know why he feels he has to explain to Yuuma)  
  
(maybe it's not Yuuma he's explaining to)  
  
"Idiot," he says again at the look on Yuuma's face. Nearly takes one of Yuuma's eyes out swiping a hand up to catch some of the tears there, and then brings the hand back down to his mouth to taste them.  
  
(they taste the same as his, dripping down without end now because it hurts, it hurts and he's--)  
  
(no he isn't he can't be and yet--)  
  
(he's afraid)  
  
"Yuuma-kun?" It's soft now. High. Shingetsu, he thinks spottily. He waits until Yuuma gives him a questioning look to speak again, to say almost wonderingly, "I'm scared, Yuuma-kun. I'm so scared." He blinks. The lashes come apart dripping. "Will you stay, Yuuma-kun?" His voice wobbles.  
  
(disgusting, he thinks, and can't remember why)  
  
Yuuma nods, Yuuma clutches him and nods and it hurts a lot to be jostled like that but he can't bring himself to protest in the slightest.  
  
(Shingetsu smiles, and stops being afraid)


End file.
